From January to February 2017, I was the Clarissa Luard Poet-in-Residence at the Wordsworth Trust, writing and thinking about writing in the dark. I visited caves, quarries and archives, revisiting caves visited by Wordsworth by looking through his pencilled notes in the Jerwood Centre. I spent my nights writing by headtorch up on White Moss and days making Claude glasses which I installed all over the hills above Grasmere.
I've been making tiny Claude glasses at @WordsworthTrust and today seems like a good day to watch the world in a tiny dark mirror. pic.twitter.com/DvqcGQdDG4
— Holly Corfield Carr (@hollycorfield) January 20, 2017
At the same time, I worked with over 800 young poets on a road trip of workshops across Cumbria. My residency, research and workshops are all documented online at lines-left.co.uk.
Lines Left (in the dark) takes its name from the peculiarly unspecific gesture towards a specific site in the title of Wordsworth’s poem ‘Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree which Stands Near the Lake of Esthwaite, On a Desolate Part of the Shore, Yet Commanding a Beautiful Prospect’ and this residency is also an extension of my doctoral research into site-specific writing practices via geology, sculpture and vision from Wordsworth to the present day.
